Electronic Data hails new CEO

Shares of Electronic Data Systems Corp. jumped Friday in the wake of the announcement that its chief executive has been replaced.

The computer services company announced after the markets closed Thursday that Richard H. Brown had resigned after more than four years as CEO and will be replaced by former Westinghouse, CBS and PepsiCo executive Michael H. Jordan.

EDS was close to a multimillion-dollar outsourcing deal with Cincinnati's Procter & Gamble Co. last year before it announced an earnings warning that sent its stock plummeting and killed the deal.

CallTech plans to hire 200 workers

CallTech Communications this week said it plans to hire 200 people within six months for a new call center in Columbia, S.C.

CallTech, based in Columbus, hopes the new center will be running by early May, spokeswoman Suzy Waud said.

Ex-CEO gets 15 years for stealing

A former chief executive convicted of stealing $2.7 million from an agricultural cooperative was sentenced Thursday in Indianapolis to 15 years in prison, two months after skipping his sentencing and fleeing to Seattle.

Former Countrymark CEO David Heath Swanson got the maximum sentence.

He will also have to pay a $50,000 fine and more than $5.5 million in restitution.

Swanson, 60, offered no explanations for his actions. After being convicted of 19 felony counts of money laundering, tax evasion and wire fraud in October, Swanson was released on his own recognizance.

Prosecutors did not think he was a flight risk or a danger to himself or the community.

Wire reports